AI (Ancestral Immediacies): Alterlife/Afterlife

In the organizer's words:

AI (Ancestral Immediacies): Alterlife/Afterlife
Of technologies, being and (un)consciousness
Film screenings, performances, talks, keynotes, installations

Free admission, no registration required

This year's edition of AI: Ancestral Immediacies is about life as a state that is produced by technologies in a variety of ways. The clear separability of life and non-life is increasingly being called into question.

New media technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence) are increasingly determining the development of society and the environment. They are redrawing the boundaries between life and non-life. With regard to the social consequences, it is particularly important to consider what life could look like after the omnipresence of technology, when discarded devices sink back into the material earth, releasing chemicals and unknown substances into the environment whose effect on bodies and worlds is unknown.

Alterlife/Afterlife asks what it means to be alive at the same time as sentient, thinking and willing machines - from homunculus to artificial general intelligence. The long history of sentient objects will be taken into account, as will a revision of the distinction between humans and non-humans, who are considered non-sentient. In performances, lectures, talks and film screenings, the program examines animisms, anthropomorphisms and the cultural afterlife of human and non-human data. How do digital technologies, materialized in memorials and deadbots, change ancient rituals of burial and recognition of the dead, and how do they urge us to stay alive?

With contributions from:
Sofia Borges, Hexorcismos, Wakanyi Hoffman, Charles Mudede, Suzanne Kite, Fatou Kandé Senghor, Ksenia Fedorova, MAF, Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás, Giulia Bini, Lou Cantor

Free admission. All events and talks in English with German translation.

More information: www.hkw.de/ai